A look at Carmen: Behind-the-scenes of The National Ballet of Canada’s latest production

Last night, The National Ballet of Canada premiered its latest masterpiece, Carmen. Finally being shown in its entirety since its partial debut in 2006, Davide Bombana’sre-imagining of Bizet’s classic tragedy is an electrifying mix of raw sexuality and awe-inspiring dance. Stripped of the original’s bombastic flamenco associations, Carmen is one minimalist wow from start to finish. At last night’s opening performance, real-life husband and wife team Guillaume Côté and Heather Ogden played the passionate on-again-off-again lovers Don Jose and Carmen. As you can imagine, their chemistry was off the charts, especially with otherworldly leaps through each others legs, arms and so on.

Previous to opening night, photographer Daniel Neuhaus caught Côté, Ogden and the rest of the cast including Jiří Jelinek and his newly-affixed devil horns, in candid mode as they prepped at the dress rehearsal and joked around backstage. Flip through for just a sliver of what goes into such an impressive production.

Carmen runs through June 16, 2013 at The National Ballet of Canada. To purchase tickets, visit national.ballet.com.